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Yesterday afternoon, news was flying around that the Occupy Wall Street contingent would be removed from the park today at 7am for cleaning. This message was sent by the private management company that owns the space, but allows it to be open to the public. The OWS crew has sparked this incredible national movement, with similar protests around the country.

Because of a serious call to action yesterday, thousands showed up at OWS last night and this morning to show support for the protest and prevent the eviction. The OWS team created cleaning crews in an attempt to clean the park themselves (the owners claimed conditions were unsanitary). Allison Kilkenney has the full story for The Nation about what went down at OWS late last night and early this morning:

Hundreds more were prepared to go to jail to hold the park. In the pre-dawn hours, activists rolled up their sleeves and scrawled the phone number of the National Lawyers Guild on their forearms in permanent marker. A foreign journalist saw me writing the number on my arm and asked, surprised, “[The police] arrest press?!” I started laughing before realizing she was seriously asking me.

Occupiers then rehearsed over and over again a meticulously choreographed routine to lock arms and defend the camp. The plan was to allow the cleaning of the park, but only a third at a time. No one I spoke to really seemed to think this would transpire without a major incident. Many activists seemed completely prepared to go to prison in order to defend what has become the nexus of the largest activism force in the U.S. to come along in four decades.

This morning, the company announced it would put off the cleaning for a few more days in an attempt to negotiate a suitable arrangement with OWS, according to Bloomberg Business Week.

This is a definite win for the OWS contingent, whose protest has only gained momentum as it’s gone on. While a number of people were arrested during a post-decision march to City Hall, the OWS remains firmly rooted in Zuccotti Park.

I made it down to OWS for the first time last weekend. I’ve been fascinated by the movement, and in particular, their way of making decisions via consensus. This video was just released about the decision-making process at OWS. It’s a complicated one, since there is no leader, and all decisions are made by large groups of people gathered for daily general assemblies.

I think we owe a lot to these dedicated protestors. Just as the Tea Party captured the imagination of our country two years ago, so do the thousands of people involved in Occupy movements around the country. They are not without their problems, but they seem to be having a positive impact on our right-leaning culture. From the Washington Post:

Dave Weigel notes that the latest Time magazine poll found that only 27 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the tea party, while 54 percent approve of Occupy Wall Street.

If you want to know more about the economic climate that spurred OWS, this is a good place to start.

In March, North Carolina’s House of Representatives passed HB 29, an education bill that includes a litany of requirements for how schools teach sexual health. It is riddled with contradictions, conservative ideologies, and scientific inaccuracies. Sadly, it will do little to improve—and, indeed might harm—the physical and mental health of young people across the state.

The bill requires that beginning in the seventh grade, all schools provide a reproductive health and safety course with a curriculum that is “objective and based upon scientific research that is peer reviewed and accepted by professionals and credentialed experts in the field of sexual health education.” Oddly enough, the requirements of the ...

Ed. note: This post was originally published on the Community site.

In March, North Carolina’s House of Representatives passed HB 29, an education bill that includes a litany of requirements for how schools teach sexual health. ...

Elaine Noble and Kathy Kozachenko should be household names. They should be just as lauded within LGBT communities as Rosa Parks is within Black communities, but unfortunately many people don’t have any idea who they are, or what they contributed to history.

Kathy Kozachenko successfully ran for the Ann Arbor City Council in April of 1974, five years after Stonewall and a few years before the assassination of Harvey Milk, as an out lesbian — making her the first openly LGBT person to ever be elected to any political office. She joined the Ann Arbor City Council as the third LGBT member, but was the first to be elected while out.

Elaine Noble and Kathy Kozachenko should be household names. They should be just as lauded within LGBT communities as Rosa Parks is within Black communities, but unfortunately many people don’t have any idea who they are, or ...

We write on behalf of young people throughout the U.S., who believe that all people should be able to access safe, legal abortion care. Did you get our notification? That we want to switch our Facebook relationship status from “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated?”

We know that these are tough times. State houses across the country are introducing and passing an unprecedented number of restrictions on access to reproductive and sexual health services. (Almost 800 have been introduced in the last 3 months alone!) Many in Congress are dead-set on enacting similar laws on a federal level. When they can’t, they are sneaking harmful abortion ...

Ed. note: This post was originally published on the Community site.

Dear Congressional Pro-Choice Leaders:

We write on behalf of young people throughout the U.S., who believe that all people should be able to access safe, legal ...